After season-opening losses over the weekend, the Indiana Fever and Los Angeles Sparks are each looking to break even at .500 on Wednesday in Los Angeles.
Indiana (0-1) stumbled to a 107-104 loss in its home opener on Saturday against the Dallas Wings. The Fever were paced by 30 points from Kelsey Mitchell on 11-for-22 shooting. Aliyah Boston added 23 points and Caitlin Clark tallied 20 points. Clark shot 7-for-18 and added seven assists and five rebounds. Reserve Makalya Timpson added 11 points.
While Indiana benefitted from 73 points via the trio of returning All-Star scorers, the Fever allowed Dallas to shoot 59.1% from the field for the game and 71.4% in the fourth quarter.
On the heels of that high-scoring loss, Fever coach Stephanie White was clear on a focus for Los Angeles.
“We want to clean up some of the things that we had, breakdown wise, on the defensive end against Dallas and we’ll look to clean it up against L.A.,” said White, clarifying that “an urgency to transition from offense to defense” would be key.
Los Angeles (0-1) fell behind early on Sunday in its 105-78 loss to Las Vegas to open its home slate. The Sparks trailed 29-14 after the first quarter, and after pulling within a point at halftime, were outscored 63-37 in the second half. Los Angeles shot just 37.2% (29-for-78) while the visiting Aces shot 62.3% (43-for-69).
Kelsey Plum led the Sparks with 27 points on 10-for-18 shooting. Fellow veteran Nneka Ogwumike added 19 points and 10 rebounds, with Dearica Hamby chipping in a dozen points and five rebounds.
“Part of the beginning of the season is figuring out rotations and chemistry and all the things,” said Sparks coach Lynne Roberts. “We didn’t have a lot of floor chemistry out there.”
Roberts singled out post Cameron Brink, who played just eight minutes and did not score while racking up three turnovers and three fouls, as a source of potential improvement.
“We need Cam to produce,” Roberts said.
–Field Level Media
